The parents are jointly responsible for raising a minor’s child and the expenses incurred in raising the minor’s child should also be jointly borne by the parents in principle. The parent’s obligation to rear the minor is arising from the birth of the child at the same time. Barring any special circumstance, such as where the rearing parent raises the minor by negligence, arising from the unilateral and secondary purpose or motive, or does not assist in the interests of the child, or imposing the child on the other party is contrary to equity, it shall be deemed that one parent may claim for expenses incurred in raising the minor against the other party regarding the period before the child is claimed. However, the so-called past child support can be determined within the scope of sharing the expenses deemed appropriate by taking into account the situation of the parties’ property, economic ability, equity in bearing the burden (see, e.g., Supreme Court en banc Decision 2005Meu165, May 13, 1994). < Amended by Act No. 4794, May 26, 195; Act No. 4798, May 29, 2000>

On the other hand, the right to seek child support from the other party is the abstract legal status that is basically acknowledged based on the relationship of relatives as seen earlier in the first place, and the contents of the child support are converted into specific claims by a family court's judgment which determines the contents of the agreement between the parties or by discretionary and formation, and thus, it has the nature of property rights more clearly independent of the other party.

As such, the right to child support in the past cannot be deemed as a property right for a custodian to exercise his/her right before a specific claim for payment is established through an agreement between the parties or a family court's adjudication, and therefore, there is no room for extinctive prescription to proceed with this.

In this case where there is no material to view that the above specific claim for child support was established on the record, the court below rejected the other party's argument that the claim for child support for the period before May 7, 1996 had expired by citing the first instance court's decision, and there is no error of law by misunderstanding the legal principles as to the extinctive prescription period of the claim for child support or the starting point of the starting point, as alleged in

Therefore, the reappeal is dismissed. It is so decided as per Disposition by the assent of all participating Justices on the bench.

Justices Kim Ji-hyung (Presiding Justice)